The present invention relates to an infant seat for use in a variety of environments including shopping carts, pre-school nurseries and other applications. The infant seat is uniquely constructed for use in such environments.
Infant seats are commonly used in shopping carts to enable a shopper to watch the infant while shopping at the same time. Current infant seats are effectively constructed to support and protect the infant, but do not always permit the shopper to look directly at the infant. Some infant seats are mounted transverse to the shopping cart, thus making it difficult for both the infant and the shopper to see each other. Such infant seats have been designed to extend transversely to the shopping cart in order to enable at least some nesting of shopping carts. Where infant seats are constructed to allow the shopper to look directly at the infant, they have created problems in the nesting of adjacent shopping carts. Currently, there is no shopping cart infant seat where the infant is positioned to face the shopper, while also permitting nesting of adjacent shopping carts.
The mounting of the infant seats to shopping carts has also created certain requirements. For example, the rear of the infant seat must be sufficiently strong enough to mount to the shopping cart, while the body contoured section of the infant seat must be sufficiently soft to comfortably support and protect the infant. At present, most infant seats for shopping carts are manufactured in a two part construction, a rigid supporting section and a relatively soft body supporting section which is mounted on the rigid rear supporting section. In addition, such designs require different manufacturing techniques for producing and assembling the rigid rear and body supporting sections which is forming the two part infant seats. At present, there is no one piece contoured bucket seat for infants which is sufficiently rigid and durable while also being sufficiently soft and comfortable to support the infant.
As will be appreciated from the discussion that follows, the infant seat of the present invention is not only usable in shopping carts, but can also be used in pre-school nurseries where a supporting structure is provided for the infant seat and in other environments where the uniquely constructed infant seat of the present invention may be used.